The term of Maj. Gen. Mohamed Khair, the secretary general of the Higher Defense Council has been extended as he reaches the retirement age, media reports said on Monday.

Defense Minister Samir Moqbel has signed a decree to extend the term of Khair, who reaches the retirement age by the end of February, according to al-Joumhouria daily.

Greek Orthodox leader Youhanna X Yazigi has hoped that talks among the country's rivals would lead to stability, stressing that only dialogue is in Lebanon's favor.

In remarks to As Safir daily published on Monday, Yazigi, who is the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, encouraged dialogue among all of Lebanon's factions.

Security forces have so far failed to arrest any major fugitives, three days into the adoption of a state-approved security plan in the eastern Bekaa region, reported the Saudi daily Okaz on Sunday.

It revealed that Hizbullah has prevented the security forces from entering the outskirts of some towns in the area because the party has “transformed them into military zones.”

The United Arab Emirates and Spain said Saturday they had suspended operations at their embassies in Yemen following a Shiite militia takeover that has prompted an exodus of foreign diplomats.

The Huthi militiamen dissolved Yemen's government and parliament on February 6 after seizing the presidential palace and key government buildings, sparking growing security concerns.

An armed robbery took place on Thursday at a BankMed branch in the Musharrafiyeh area in Beirut, reported the National News Agency.

It said that a gunmen stole 20,000 dollars from the branch before fleeing the scene.

Maronite Bishop Boulos Mattar stressed on Monday that linking the presidential election with the conflict in the region is a great mistake, hailing the dialogue between the political arch-foes.

“If Lebanon was a leading country in making culture... then how could it link its fate to that of other countries in the Middle East?” Mattar wondered in his sermon on the occasion of St. Maroun Day.

A Lebanese professor at the University of South Carolina's school of public health was reportedly killed in an apparent murder-suicide on Thursday.

The deaths occurred at the university's school of public health.

The Islamic State group said a coalition air strike Friday killed an American woman it was holding hostage in Syria, in a claim that could not be immediately verified.

In Jordan, meanwhile, thousands of people marched to demand retribution against IS for murdering a captive pilot.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday condemned "in the strongest terms" last week's killing of a Spanish peacekeeper in southern Lebanon and decided to set up a board of inquiry to investigate his death, a senior U.N. official said.

Wednesday's statement comes a week after Cpl. Francisco Javier Soria Toledo was killed during the Israeli military's exchange of fire with Hizbullah in a disputed border area.

The chief of the U.S.-led war on IS, General Lloyd Austin, condemned the pilot's murder as "savage" and vowed to "fight this barbaric enemy until it is defeated".

British Prime Minister David Cameron said the "sickening murder will only strengthen our resolve to defeat ISIL", another acronym for the group.